Mennipea

Mennipea

Menippea is another name for Menippean satire, named after the classical writer Menippus. The term 'menippea' is also used in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin to denote a particular class of "serio-comic" or "carnivalized" prose fiction, one of whose characteristics is that it 'to some extent always parodies itself'. Authors of menippea in Bakhtin's sense include Voltaire, Diderot and Edgar Allan Poe.